Centennial basketball coach Josh Giles, right, reacts to a low point during a game against Eastvale Roosevelt. There have many low points in this 3-22 season.

(From left) Centennial High School varsity head basketball coach Josh Giles, stands with his relatively young team: freshman Ryan Heiligenthal, freshman Sedrick Barefield, freshman Kyle Hamilton and freshman Victor Lewis during the playing of the national anthem prior to a game against Eastvale Roosevelt on Monday.

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(From left) Centennial High School's Will Smith, Sam Finley, coach Josh Giles and Ryan Heiligenthal celebrate a good play during the first quarter against Roosevelt.

Centennial coach Josh Giles, middle kneeling, talks with his team during the first quarter at Roosevelt High.

CORONA — Rebuilding is hard, even painful. Especially when you’re not used to it.

For five seasons, Corona Centennial boys basketball was a burgeoning power, with league championships and deep playoff runs, including last season’s dash to the Southern California regional final.

Now? Winning a game sets off a celebration. The Huskies were tickled Monday night that they’d finally closed out a game successfully, holding on to win at Eastvale Roosevelt 62-59 after almost letting an 11-point fourth-quarter lead get away.

This is a season unlike any head coach Josh Giles has experienced at the school. Centennial is 3-22 overall and 2-11 in the Big VIII. Even with five victories that were forfeited earlier in the season after the school self-reported an eligibility issue, the Huskies still couldn’t catch the 12-16 of Giles’ first season at Centennial, 2004-05.

Why? Well, consider: The Huskies won’t have a Senior Night when they close their regular season at home tonight against Riverside King, because there are none on the roster.

Seven members of the 13-player roster are freshmen, and six of those are in the regular rotation. The leading scorer, guard Sedrick Barefield (11.8), is a freshman. So are the leading rebounders, 6-6 Ryan Heilgenthal, 6-2 Kyle Hamilton and 6-3 Victor Lewis.

“It’s the best freshman class we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Giles said. “The only problem is that they’re being thrown into the mix right away.”

The Class of ’15 has to make up for the deficiencies of its last two predecessors. Usually you know your program is rolling when it regenerates itself yearly, but the momentum on the lower levels stalled the last couple years.

“We knew we were going to be starting over this year,” said Giles, who is 171-72 in his eight seasons at the school. “It’s basically my first year at Centennial all over again. We’re re-teaching everything we do because everybody’s new.

“It goes in cycles, unless you’re a Mater Dei or somebody like that. We’ve been very fortunate that the last six years we’ve had a really good cycle.”

The force-feeding has had difficult moments, which is to be expected when the losses pile up. Giles mentioned a point two weeks ago when effort and togetherness were a concern, but a 73-38 rout by new Big VIII champ Riverside North on Jan. 27 — and the lecture that followed — served as a wakeup call.

Since then, the Huskies had close losses to Corona and Corona Santiago, an easy win over last place Norco, and Monday night’s triumph against a Roosevelt team fighting for playoff position. That may not have meant anything to the Huskies in the standings, but it meant a lot in so many other ways.

“This is really important, because we want to show we’re coming back next year hard,” said Hamilton, whose progress over the past three months likely mirrors that of his fellow freshmen.

“In the beginning of the year I was struggling a lot with defense,” he said. “I’m a lot faster on my feet (now), and I feel like I’ve been a lot more effective on the offensive end. At the start of the season I was a little nervous. Now I feel good about it.”

Next year, the freshmen should be better, as should the current sophomores and juniors. And the team will regain the services of Sam Finley, a 6-2 junior transfer from King who was averaging 19.4 points and 4.5 rebounds in 15 games before he was forced to the sidelines.

The school never revealed the name of the player involved in the eligibility issue, citing confidentiality. But feel free to connect the dots. And understand, too, that there appear to be some emotions bubbling under the surface if the “he said, she said” rhetoric of the message boards is any indication.

“Sam is amazing,” said junior guard Skylar Williams. “He’s a 20-point guy for sure. He rebounds, plays defense, and he’s all over the floor. He’s the best player on our team, definitely.”

You think he, and his teammates, might have some extra motivation next season?

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Jim Alexander is an Inland Empire native who started with his hometown newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, longer ago than he cares to admit. He's been a sports columnist off and on since 1992, and a full-time columnist since 2010. Yes, he's opinionated, but no, that's not the only club in his bag. He's covered every major league and major sports beat in Southern California over the years, so not much surprises him any more. (And he and Justin Turner have this in common: Both attended Cal State Fullerton. Jim has no plans to replicate Turner's beard.)